The extraordinary Arab-Muslim summit held in the Saudi capital Riyadh last week issued a joint statement which called for "providing all forms of political and diplomatic support to the Palestinian people and to the State of Palestine for achieving Palestinian national unity, and for its effective assumption of its responsibilities over all the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza Strip, unifying it with the West Bank, including the city of Jerusalem." The statement also "reaffirmed the full sovereignty of the State of Palestine over occupied East Al-Quds, the eternal capital of Palestine, and rejects any Israeli decisions or measures aimed at Judaizing it and consolidating its colonial occupation of the city."
The myth or reality of the Palestinian state is not a new debate. When the Arab-Muslim summit adhered to its commitment to a viable state of Palestine it was immediately rejected by the Israeli Foreign Minister. Even a makeshift Palestinian state composed of a Hamas-run Gaza Strip and a PLO-administered West Bank littered with hundreds of Jewish settlements is not acceptable to Israel. There was a time when - on November 13, 1974 - PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat got a standing ovation as he addressed the UN General Assembly in which he called for the establishment of a Palestinian State in which Muslims, Christians and Jews will live in justice, equality and fraternity. After 50 years, the steady erosion of the demand for an independent Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital is a stark reality.
In retrospect, the 1947 UN partition plan called for two states in Palestine: one composed of Jews........